By Silvia Ognibene

FLORENCE, Italy, May 31 (Reuters) – A 16-year jail sentence for the previous captain of the Costa Concordia cruise liner for his position within the lethal 2012 shipwreck was upheld on Tuesday by an Italian appeals court docket.

Francesco Schettino, who was commanding the ship when it hit rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio, killing 32 folks, and the prosecutor had each appealed towards the sentence handed down final yr.

Schettino was discovered responsible by a decrease court docket of a number of manslaughter, inflicting a shipwreck and abandoning passengers in one of many highest-profile delivery disasters lately.

Florence’s appeals court docket upheld that ruling, rejecting a prosecutor’s request to increase the time period to 27 years and three months and Schettino’s legal professionals’ name for him to be acquitted.

The captain, who has admitted some duty however denied blame for the deaths that occurred through the evacuation after the ship’s aspect tore on the rocky shore, didn’t attend court docket.

“The blame is shared, the problem is quantifying it,” Schettino’s lawyer Donato Laino stated outdoors court docket after breaking the information to his shopper by phone.

Asked whether or not Schettino, who wept throughout his remaining testimony final yr, had expressed bitterness, Laino stated: “Certainly.”

Schettino can enchantment towards the enchantment court docket’s ruling, which additionally bars him from engaged on a ship for 5 years.

The judges who delivered the primary verdict dominated that he wouldn’t go to jail till the appeals course of – which may take years in Italy – is full.

Investigators stated Schettino introduced the 290-metre vessel too near shore and criticised his behaviour severely.

The ship’s proprietor, Carnival Corp unit Costa Cruises, paid a nice of 1 million euros ($1.3 million on the time) and prosecutors accepted plea bargains from 5 officers.

A lawyer representing a bunch of survivors stated she had requested for a probe into the corporate’s position to be reopened, as a result of “there are still some guilty parties to identify”.

The Costa Concordia’s hulk wallowed on its aspect within the waters off Giglio, a preferred vacation vacation spot, for two-and-a-half years earlier than it was righted and towed away in probably the most costly maritime wreck recoveries in historical past.

The final physique was recovered in 2014.

The Florence court docket dominated Costa Cruises and Schettino ought to pay the island’s authorities 300,000 euros in compensation. (Writing by Isla Binnie; Editing by Alison Williams)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016.